Mortal Corruption
by Mark of the Asphodel
Summary: The beautiful troubadour keeps vigil over a handsome young prince, holding death at bay in his hour of darkness. That's how the story's supposed to go, anyway. L'Arachel, meet reality. FE8.


**Mortal Corruption**

I do not own _Fire Emblem _or any of its characters.

Warning: Contains some graphic descriptions of gore and decay and is hence rated T for a reason.

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She should have known, really, that royal blood didn't flow as red and sweet as sacramental wine, that it made ugly dark clots when it spilled. She should have known that the blood would dry in black patches, slick as the wings of a Jehannan dungbeetle, and not stay bright like the crimson tempera in the paintings of Saint Latona and her comrades. She should have known that even a king's son would have the same filth in his gut as did any other man.

L'Arachel dipped her fine linen kerchief in a basin of warm water, wrung it out above the basin so as not to waste a drop, and laid it across her patient's pale brow. Yes, she should have known that it would not be at all like the songs and poems and mystery plays. That young men, even heroic young men, didn't necessarily die with a glow of holy light upon them, that they died choking on blood and vomit, died with streamers of saliva on their lips, died with their bowels uncoiled.

She could not let him join them.

"Fear not, brave defender of Renais. The light of Rausten will keep the darkness at bay; I, L'Arachel, will protect you." Her voice sounded so small and unimpressive that L'Arachel cleared her throat and decided to try again. "The battlefield may be your domain, but this sacred pavilion of healing is part of mine."

He answered her only with jagged irregular breaths. His cheek remained too cool, too damp, beneath her fingers, and his eyes seemed only to grow more shadowed and sunken with each hour. Now and then his eyelids would flicker, exposing a line of solid white beneath the lashes.

The sight was positively unnerving. It made her think of the revenants that stumbled around armed with swords and lances, their rotten limbs manipulated by the strings of the Demon King. Some of them had vacant holes in their skulls where their eyes had been, but some of them weren't quite so decayed, and their noseless faces still held milky white eyes....

L'Arachel shuddered as she imagined coming across their fallen allies in the Darkling Woods-- Franz and Artur and Marisa, their bones showing through tears in the skin, their teeth exposed by blackened lips, each of them rendered as horrid as the undead fiends that had put Ephraim into so desperate a condition. She thought of her parents, picked-clean bones draped in shreds of holy vestments, a diadem gleaming yet upon the bare white of her mother's skull. One image led uncontrollably to the next, and she found herself wondering what she might do if confronted with Ephraim himself, dead-eyed and leering, his lance clutched in a skeletal hand.

L'Arachel squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and reminded herself that it didn't matter. It _did not matter_ what became of the body as long as the spirit remained pure.

"For we are all of us as day-blooming flowers...."

Flowers whose delicate petals must wither and fall at the approach of night. The strongest body would fail, the most beautiful face would turn gray with the touch of death, but the spirit would shine. Ephraim would not cease to be when the breath left his body; his soul would live on in the realm of the Everlasting, just as his name would ring out through the legends of Magvel as long as Magvel itself did exist. And for Magvel to exist, in the face of this great plague of darkness, it needed Ephraim and his strength, his glorious reckless strength.

And since that meant Ephraim was needed by the cause of light, L'Arachel could only have perfect faith that he would recover from this... momentary setback. Indeed, she thought she saw a little more color in his face already.

"I do think you're looking better," she said as loudly as she dared. "We don't need any more thoughts of this morbid strain, do we?"

He mumbled three syllables that might have been her name, and L'Arachel smiled through her exhaustion. Warm relief spread through her as she lay down alongside his pallet; she no longer worried that a young man was scandalously close to her, separated from her by layers of thin cloth. She thought only that she might lend to Ephraim some of that warmth, some comfort, as he endured the night. She did not mean to sleep, only to rest a few minutes, and before closing her eyes she trapped his wrist between her fingers, confident that she would feel every flutter of life and so be attuned to his needs.

She should have known better. Father Moulder had to take Ephraim's lifeless hand out of her grasp when he arrived, not an hour later, to relieve L'Arachel from her shift. She truly should have known.

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Author's Note: I first took a stab at this for the "Temper" challenge at the fe_contest on LJ. That didn't work, and while it would have fit the theme of the next challenge ("Spirit"), I had something more ambitious in mind for that prompt and just decided to publish this one. This is the shortest fanfic I've ever written that did not have a maximum-length requirement.


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